Shall we do more Valentine's Day poems? Here's one...

Whistle
1

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

  • e.e. cummings
2

The Spider’s Web
by E.B. White

The spider dropping down from twig
Unfolds a plan of her devising
A thin premeditated rig
To use in rising.

And all that journey down from space,
In cool descent and loyal hearted
She spins a ladder to the place
From where she started.

Thus I, gone forth as spiders do
In spider?s web a truth discerning,
Attach one silken strand to you
For my returning.

3

The River-Merchant’s Wife
Ezra Pound

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-yen, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fu-Sa.

By Rihaku

4

Bravo Jim! Here’s another…


A Red, Red Rose
by Robert Burns

O my luve’s like a red, red rose.
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my luve’s like a melodie
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will love thee still, my Dear,
Till a’the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my Dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun:
I will luve thee still, my Dear,
While the sands o’life shall run.

And fare thee weel my only Luve!
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ it were ten thousand mile!

5

OK, if there’s one time of the year you can get away with some overt sap, I suppose this is it. :wink: If you haven’t heard yet, I have the good fortune to have the most awesome wife. :slight_smile:

Jef

I could not have known
on that dark September day
when we first met that you
were such a beautiful person
inside.

Your love is amazing
unchanging and yet
becoming more obvious
with each day that passes

Your compassion has no bounds
and to think that you have shown it
to complete strangers, to our children,
to me, without limits or demands,
seems unimaginable.

That look in your eyes is one of fun,
of contagious enthusiasm
for life.
Unselfish in most every way.

Confiding your fears and doubts
while fielding mine as well
and working out just how
together, we’ll get through them.

For had I known at first
what was waiting for me
I would not have thought
myself worthy, nor do I still.

In you I’m loved
safe and satisfied
happy beyond measure
and grateful for each moment.

Not just the ones today
but those comprising twenty years
of love, compassion, fun,
unselfishness, and confidence.

When can we begin tomorrow?

6

No thyng ys to man so dere
As wommanys love in gode manere.
A gode womman is mannys blys,
There her love right and stedfast ys.
There ys no solas under hevene
Of alle that a man may nevene
That shulde a man so moche glew
As a gode womman that loveth true.
Ne derer is none in Goddis hurde
Than a chaste womman with lovely worde.

–John Barbour. d. 1395

7

To the rhythm of beatnick bongos:

Yo babe.

(grand pause ended by bongo flurry)

I like totally love you.

(fingers: snap, snap, snap…)

by LimuHead ©2004





:smiley:

8

On a more serious note:

Here’s one I wrote in high school (over 20 years ago!) heavily under the influence of mr. e.e. cummings. (I even left the capitals out!):

our love

a yes of two be’s
turns the am’s of we into are.
where beauty remains
is never seeing a yes of was or were.

m. aldon s.




edited to add the title, 'cause i forgot to the first time. also added a sentence at the beginning because, well, i could. and then went mad and amended things left and right whether they needed it or not. just because, well, i could. the poem remains as it was created. even the cheezy ‘poet’ name’s the same, though i must say that in addition to the pretense of it all, i’m rather enamored with the “artsy-fartsy” looks of all those oddly placed lower-case initials. “m. aldon s.” it just plain looks cool. anyway, wow, you actually took the time to figure out what all this small writing said…cool…

9

Bravo, one and all! More, please. Where are our poets?

10

Limu, I like your first one. It’s the best.

I’d gladly contribute some poeticness, but I’m about to hit the PA turnpike for Ohio. Taking a second look at Kenyon and Wooster with a couple of my girls. Decision time is impending. By the time I’m home, Monday, Valentines Day will be so 2 days ago.

11

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh . . . . And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new

e e cummings

12

My Funny Valentine

Words and Music by R. Rodgers and L. Hart

My funny valentine;

Sweet, comic valentine;

You make me smile with my heart.



Your looks are laughable;

Unphotographable;

Yet, you’re my favorite work of art.



Is your figure - less than Greek?

Is your mouth - a little weak?

When you open it to speak, are you smart?



Don’t change a hair for me;

Not if you care for me;

Stay, little valentine, stay!

Each day is valentine’s day.

13

“Just the Way You Look Tonight”
music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Dorothy Fields
Someday,
When I’m awfully low
And the world is cold,
I will feel a glow just thinking of you
And the way you look tonight.

Yes, you’re lovely
With your smile so warm
And your cheek so soft.
There is nothing for me but to love you
Just the way you look tonight.

With each word your tenderness grows,
Tearing my fear apart.
And that smile that wrinkles your nose,
Touches my foolish heart.

Lovely,
Never, never change.
Keep that breathless charm.
Won’t you please arrange it, 'cause I love you
Just the way you look tonight–
Just the way you look tonight

14

Hamlet in April J Stone

I would not praise your legs as fine
Had I not something more in mind,
For it is Spring.
The virtue sought has melted off
With winter’s melt.
My thought has drained as down
An iron tub,
And nothing is at it would seem.

To sleep, perchance to rub,
Ah, there’s the dream!

15

Two Scottish poems

At First Sight

Should I speak unthinkingly,
rashly, outwardly,
or look, wordlessly?

Move determinedly
or wait expectantly?
She sighs slightly.

I turn anxiously.
She sits quietly,
smiling distantly.

Either lie, passionately,
or not lie, fruitlessly?
I pause, two-mindedly.

To love wishfully,
blindly, entirely,
self-transformingly;

or to stay truthfully
in doubt, wistfully
doomed to reality?

Her face, held beautifully,
looks at me questioningly.
I watch her, wonderingly.

To love recklessly,
hazarding certainty,
losing identity;

or to feel warily –
vows made conditionally,
words weighed carefully?

She looks up suddenly,
her eyes speaking clearly
my thought, completely.

Poised unbelievably,
we touch magically,
and light strikes, blindlingly.

–Alastair Reid


Love in Age

Now that we have had our day, you
having carried, borne children,
been responsible through the wearing years,
in this moment and the next
and still the next as our love
spreads to tomorrow’s horizon,
we talk a little before silence.

Let the young make up their love songs,
about which subject they are securely ignorant.
Let them look into eyes that mirror
themselves. Let them groan and ululate
their desire into a microphone. Let them
shout their proclamations over the tannoy
– a whisper is enough for us.

–George Bruce

…and from my high school days, a haiku:

The quiet snow falls.
Beaming, he brings me a gift
and watches me smile.

Carol

16

lovely

17

e. e. cummings, Jim? Now I have to respect you no matter what they may say. :wink:

This is one of my favorites of his:


a clown's smirk in the skull of a baboon
(where once good lips stalked or eyes firmly stirred)
my mirror gives me,on this afternoon
i am a shape that can but eat and turd
ere with the dirt death shall him vastly gird,
a coward waiting clumsily to cease
whom every perfect thing meanwhile doth miss;
a hand's impression in an empty glove,
a soon forgotten tune,a house for lease.
I have never loved you dear as now i love

behold this fool who,in the month of June,
having of certain stars and planets heard,
rose very slowly in a tight balloon
until the smallening world became absurd;
him did an archer spy (whose aim had erred
never) and by that little trick or this
he shot the aeronaut down,into the abyss
-and wonderfully i fell through the green groove
of twilight,striking into many a piece.
I have never loved you dear as now i love

god's terrible face,brighter than a spoon,
collects the image of one fatal word;
so that my life (which liked the sun and moon)
resembles something that has not occurred:
i am a birdcage without any bird,
a collar looking for a dog,a kiss
without lips;a prayer lacking any knees
but something beats within my shirt to prove
he is undead who,living,noone is.
I have never loved you dear as now i love.

Hell (by most humble me which shall increase)
open thy fire! for i have had some bliss
of one small lady upon earth above
to whom i cry,remembering her face,
i have never loved you dear as now i love

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*sniff*
18

wonderful

also by e e cummings

Jimmy’s got a girl, girl, girl
Jimmy’s got a girl.
And when you see her shake a shimmy,
Don’t you wish that you were Jimmy?
Talk about your Sal, Sal, Salomes,
But give me Jimmy’s gal!

19

Here’s my other most favorite love poem of his:


it may not always be so; and i say
that if your lips, which i have loved, should touch
another's, and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart, as mine in time not far away;
if on another's face your sweet hair lay
in such a silence as i know, or such
great writhing words as, uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;

if this should be, i say if this should be-
you of my heart, send me a little word;
that i may go unto him, and take his hands,
saying, Accept all happiness from me.
Then i shall turn my face, and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That one gets me every time.
20

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why (Sonnet XLIII)
Edna St. Vincent Millay

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.